Microsoft Money 2002 Deluxe

Microsoft Money users are a minority; for every person who uses Money, four use Quicken. But that may change once Quicken users check out Money 2002 Deluxe. We're impressed by the personal finance program's groundbreaking online features--especially MoneySide, an in-the-browser display that gives you instant, secure access to your most important financial info while you're online. Combine Money 2002's new Web sense with an attractive interface, easy-as-pie setup, excellent planning tools, and a capable portfolio, and you have a winner. Our only concern: Money makes you obtain a Passport account to access many of its services. Still, for all but dedicated Quicken users, Money 2002's right on the money.Microsoft Money users are a minority; for every person who uses Money, four use Quicken. But that may change once Quicken users check out Money 2002 Deluxe. We're impressed by the personal finance program's groundbreaking online features--especially MoneySide, an in-the-browser display that gives you instant, secure access to your most important financial info while you're online. Combine Money 2002's new Web sense with an attractive interface, easy-as-pie setup, excellent planning tools, and a capable portfolio, and you have a winner. Our only concern: Money makes you obtain a Passport account to access many of its services. Still, for all but dedicated Quicken users, Money 2002's right on the money.

Slower setup is worth the wait
For first-timers, there's no question which financial manager is easier to use: Money wins over Quicken in a landslide, even with the latter's new and improved setup wizards. Although Money's setup takes time--15-20 minutes in our tests--the step-by-step process helps you configure all your accounts and schedule all your bills (such as mortgage, utilities, and cable TV). Like last year, Money does a thorough job of converting Quicken data files from versions up to and including 2001. We translated several Quicken files and did only minor cleanup on the resulting Money files.

Sadly, Mac users are still out in the cold where Money is concerned, since the program works only in Windows.

We still prefer Money's look and feel over Quicken's, even though it hasn't changed much from last year's. Money's interface resembles a snazzy Web site and navigates like one, too. This edition offers a newly customizable toolbar, several predesigned home page templates to customize how your program's opening screen looks, and most important, the ability to modify those home pages and display whichever you choose. That way, you can quickly jump to the modules you use most often. When you're deep into investments, for example, you can set Money to show the ready-to-use Investing home page.

Tax relief
Money's tax expertise, particularly its links with the TaxCut tax prep package, is somewhat sharper than last year's edition. In fact, Microsoft has taken a page out of the Quicken/TurboTax integration book. As you pull data out of Money and into TaxCut, you have a chance to view and edit the financial data before finalizing the import. But TaxCut's historic second-rate status as a tax program shifts our faith to the Quicken/TurboTax combo come tax time. Hide Review